


That I Would Be Loved

by BlaiddDrwg1982



Series: Malex One Shots [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: 6+1 Things, A lot of handwaving by the author, Adult Alex, Adult Isobel, Adult Max, Adult Michael, Intimacy but no porn, Kid Isobel, Kid Max, Kid Michael, M/M, Michael Guerin Deserves Nice Things, Not exactly graphic violence but there is definitely some violence, See note for trigger warnings, Semi-Canon Compliant, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 08:31:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18133376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlaiddDrwg1982/pseuds/BlaiddDrwg1982
Summary: Max and Isobel always had each other and their adoptive parents to lean on for comfort and love. But what happened when Michael was in need?





	That I Would Be Loved

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from “That I Would Be Good” by Alanis Morissette. 
> 
> Trigger Warnings may include: Assault, abandoment themes, intimidation, negative self talk, dead people (canonically), and general anxiety.

_1\. Time of Emergence_

The last thing he remembered from being put into the pod as the ship around them was shearing apart around them was their Caretaker looking down at them with the kindest eyes, even though they all knew they were going to die. Comforting brown eyes, the last memory he held from before going into the pod. Gently running her hand through his curls, careful to not pull a single one, she ushered him into the pod and activated the stasis sequence.

What he did not see was the deck buckling under her feet and destroying their emergency beacon. What he did not see was her doing a last minute panicked scan of the subterranean areas they were crashing down to. What he did not see was a tear streaked face as she activated the transporter that whisked the three of them to safety, while she was thrown to the deck plates, never to lift herself up again.

The last thing he remembered was a touch of kindness, and the last thought she gave him. 

“Seek home. Protect the twins. Be safe. I love you.”

When they woke decades later, stumbling in confusion on a strange, alien world that smelled wrong, he didn’t even remember these things. He knew this wasn’t home. He didn’t remember what home was. He barely remembered what they were, but he knew that this wasn’t right. As they emerged from the cave, which was out of place but he didn’t remember why, and they looked up to the sky, he felt his stomach constrict at the wrongness of it all. The stars were in the wrong position. There wasn’t nearly enough moons in the sky. There should have been...

There should have been...

Shaking his head as the wisp of a memory escaped him, he felt the panic and distress from the boy and the girl he’d emerged with. The Twins. They were his to protect. They were his family, he knew that. They weren’t like him though. He’d have to be strong for them. He had to find home. Taking their hands, he started their walk through the desert, following the smells on the air until he could see what looked like a pathway. Some buried memory surfaced long enough to know this was a road way, that primitive societies had to use to travel. What was society? What was primitive? These thoughts evaporated from his mind as the mist did from the air in the morning. 

Before long, he even lost that memory. 

Something stopped near them, bathing them in light. Pulling the Twins hands so they would stop, he listened as the tall person got out of the thing and their mouth started to move. Vocal communication. They were capable of it, but they couldn’t form the words to their own language let alone try and communicate in a language they had no understanding of. They absorbed the words but not the meanings. Soon though, there were flashing lights and more of these strange creatures clustering around them. They were wrapped in soft fabric and guided to the back of what appeared to be a transport.

“Car,” the ‘Sheriff’ had said. He liked the car immediately. He was a little unsure of the Sheriff, but he seemed to be a nice enough primitive, so he coaxed his sibling pair in to following him. 

Batteries of tests were run on them in the ‘Hospital’ which he didn’t much care for, but instinct was telling him to just blend in and let them happen. The lights started to flicker as the male twin was getting scared. A sharp look from him had put a stop to the electrical fluctuations. They could not draw attention to themselves. He knew this.

He knew precious little else. But right now. He knew this.

Another trip in a transport, they were taken to a shelter with more younglings like themselves. Clustering in a corner, they kept to themselves, mutely accepting the clothing they were offered, they curled up together and just listened to everything around them, absorbing and learning as fast as they could. 

When they woke the next day, he was curled up alone, face wet with tears he shed for reasons he did not know. Rolling over, he saw the twins curled up together still, comforting one another. Rolling back over, he curled up alone, not realizing he was crying again, from the lack of comfort, the lack of security, and the lack of the presence of someone he loved.

Even if he didn’t remember her.

***

_2\. Time of Abandonment_

‘Michael’ as he’d been labelled had been studying the people around the centre with what he’d overheard as an “eery quiet.” He didn’t know what that was, but their tone of voice definitely said it wasn’t really that good. ‘Max’ and ‘Isobel’ as his siblings had been labelled were a bit more “well behaved” than he was, so he’d been told and was starting to understand. He’d learned their written language easily enough, finding it rather crude but serviceable. Though the comparison to what he knew from before was lost as he knew he wouldn’t be able to read the language of their people.

Max and Isobel had been taken to a different room where people looked at them and oohed and awwwwed over their earnest and innocent looks, while giving Michael either the cold shoulder, or looking at him in outright contempt. 

He’d learned what materials he could use to make marks on other surfaces. The easiest to get was usually a marker, but it never did what he expected it to do. He would draw beacon after beacon after beacon, but none of them would activate. A memory that he again had lost told him that certain materials when used on other materials to draw a shape could make the shape work. He’d drawn and drawn and drawn, on books, on shelves, on the floor. Even on the cat that slunk around in case that was what was needed. He frightened Isobel and Max. They could feel his anxiety that he was forgetting to do something and failing when he tried. 

This time, when they emerged from the room with the tall people, they didn’t come back over to him. They gave him a look of sorrow, while squeezing each other’s hands, and turned to leave with the tall people. One of the workers in the home took him to the side and in a low and gentle voice, explained to him that Max and Isobel were going to live with a new family, and that maybe sometime soon, he’d find a new family to go with. He’d been assured that he would be able to see them soon, and when they went to school, which he’d learned was a type of education centre, they’d be in the same levels.

Turning back to carving the beacon in the floor underneath the bookshelf, he couldn’t even bring himself to feel disappointed at the outcome. Seven hundred thirty five attempts and not even a flicker of success. Setting down the piece of broken coffee cup he’d been using, he simply sighed a resigned sigh of defeat. If it hadn’t worked to this point, there wasn’t much of a chance it would work anyway. This planet just didn’t have the technology he needed to be able to signal their Home and let them know he was here. 

Wiping his eyes so he didn’t start crying again, he watched with the wariness that came with protecting his siblings. The older children saw that he was alone now, without the benefit of his siblings to help protect him. While he knew he could push them all away with his mind, he also had figured out pretty quickly that these powers weren’t something that anyone else had here. He operated with his siblings as a triumvirate of powers. Something that he didn’t remember was common on their world. Isobel had the domain of the mind, Max, the domain of the spirit, and he held the domain of the physical world. Which meant he had to be careful. 

That also meant when they were ganging up on him, pinching and hitting him where the workers wouldn’t be able to see the bruises, he had to keep his head down. He wouldn’t fight back, because he knew he would kill these children if he did. The adults didn’t know, and over the next few weeks with the black eyes he’d received, the adults found a new solution for him. The other children were insisting he was starting the fights, and as he didn’t speak in his defence, the adults believed them.

So they sent him away to a different group home. The only benefit to the ranch was they each had separate rooms and that he could avoid the others if he wanted to. It was pretty easy, he was small and spry. Being able to throw yourself up to the roof also helped. 

He could still feel his siblings in the back of his mind though. Their connection though stressed was still there. He could feel the comfort that he was so sorely denied. The simple pleasure of being in a family unit once again.

Turning over on his simple bed in a room he was told in no uncertain terms he was not to modify, he allowed himself the indulgence of letting his tears stream down his cheeks, closing his eyes and dreaming of warm brown eyes, pinched in the middle in concern, and holding him close while he wept.

***

_3\. Time of Destruction_

Walking back to town from his camping trip with Max and Izzy, feeling the churning sickness in his stomach at having to bury the body of the transient. Max and Izzy were able to escape back to their suburban life, while he was marching back to the place that had tried to exorcise him and burn out the demons within because they had seen a small display of his powers. 

Kicking the stones beneath his feet, he used his mind to send them flying far into the empty distance. Looking up at the now familiar stars, he still felt a wrongness about them. He didn’t remember home. Didn’t remember their Caretaker. Didn’t remember going into the pod. Didn’t remember anything. But the early feeling he had of the wrongness of this world still stuck with him. There were times it felt like he was the only one who remembered that they weren’t from here. Like Izzy and Max wanted to fully assimilate to this world. 

Michael held no delusions. He knew the chances of being rescued were less than zero at this point. It had been decades since they’d crashed here and nothing so much as a hint there were others of their kind here. He’d settle down on this world, he knew he would eventually. He’d find his strengths and leave this place behind.

Except he couldn’t. He never would. He never could. If he left Isobel and Max, the three of them would be vulnerable. As much as they all hated to admit it, they depended on each other. While they were of an age where they were branching out and making their own peer and social groups, he was witnessing that more with his siblings, and feeling more and more cut out.

Appearances were important. He knew that. That was one thing he’d figured out bouncing from group home to group home. He didn’t have the right one. He’d given up trying to fit in and instead just worked with the cultivated appearance of being a bad boy instead. He didn’t seek out fights but he also didn’t do much to avoid them either. 

Despite it all, he still felt like the scared little boy who pulled himself out of his pod while Max and Izzy were helping each other. He was strong when he needed to be, but it was tiring. Taking a swig of the acetone from the bottle he brought with and chose not to share, he felt his link with Izzy and Max get a bit fuzzy. They never seemed to notice if he was there or not.

“Fuck ‘em,” he muttered into the uncaring darkness.

Taking one long swig and finishing the bottle, he was tempted to throw it to the side of the road. But this was a stretch of the road the Nuns made him and the other kids clean up every Monday night after school and chores were done. He’d just end up cleaning it up anyway. He’d toss it into the garbage can by the church before he made his way to what was generously considered his room. 

Stripping down and putting on what could only be considered institutionalized pyjamas, he stretched out on his glorified cot. The only Nun who had shown him any compassion was Sister Marina Cortez, and that was when he’d first arrived. She was a no nonesense woman who was a Nun long before the crash. He’d estimated her age at about a thousand years old which earned him a flick on the tip of his nose and a finger pointing in his face.

“You may have all these idiots looking at you like you’re the worst thing that’s crossed their paths since the devil himself came to call. But I see you Michael Guerin. I see what’s in your heart,” she then reached out and pinched his cheek. 

It was hard, and it hurt. But with a wry grin she said in a voice barely above a whisper, “You are a genius and you will move the world when your time comes.”

For the first time in a while, he didn’t feel as alone. Her watery grey eyes that held secrets he hadn’t even thought of looked right through his carefully erected walls and didn’t judge him for anything she’d read in his file, or she’d heard about in his past. She was just as quick to call him on his idiocy as she was to praise him for his ingenuity. 

She passed away two months after he’d moved in.

As it turns out, she’d been keeping the other nun’s off his back so he could relax a little. Sister Marina Cortez was keeping the wolves at bay and when he’d let his control slip in his grief over the grizzled Nun passing away, that was when the more zealous members of the order decided an exorcism was in order. 

Pulling the book out from under the bed, he looked at the thing that Sister Marina had brought in for him. A university level engineering text book. 

“It’s probably older than I am but it’ll keep your mind occupied.”

When the other boys in the dorm were trading their skin magazines around, he holed up with an engineering textbook and taught himself everything he could. Clutching his textbook to his chest, feeling the solid weight behind it, he let the events of today wash through his mind, not forgetting for one instant that he had to do what needed to be done to keep them safe.

Curling in on himself, he imagined Max and Izzy at home, in their personalized rooms, holding on to each other, comforting each other through the worst of their nights, while he was alone with the cold comfort of knowledge and solitude to guide him.

Allowing himself just a moment of selfishness, he let himself hate his siblings, while at the same time knowing full well he’d be returning to make sure the body stayed buried before he went to school.

***

_4\. Time of Intercession_

“Don’t touch him!”

Michael launched himself at Alex’s father, dragging him away from Alex as if it was the only thing that mattered to him in the entire world. Regardless of consequence. Regardless of anything. He would not stand by and let Jesse Manes hurt Alex. Not if he could help it.

Being spun around and his hand pinned to the workbench time seemed to have slowed down. He could hear Alex yelling in the background, and hear Jesse grinding his teeth. The smell of the wood and varnish. The way the light danced in the room. The lingering smell of lube and sex and the lingering feeling of the rightness of it all. 

Remembering the feeling he had while looking up into a comforting pair of warm brown eyes that loved him and held him in a way that made him feel safe. Different from the lingering sense memory of his Caretaker. But the feeling of warmth as he sunk into Alex and as Alex sunk into him, wrapped up in each other’s arms, peppering kisses wherever their lips could find purchase, and whispering each other’s names with groans of fulfillment. Holding each other tightly when they’d been spent and tracing gentle fingers across each other’s bodies. 

Feeling safe, and loved, for the first time in 11 years.

Then the searing pain from the hammer making contact broke him from his memories, leaving him crying out, but holding back his powers. He could not risk Alex seeing him display his powers. He would let Jesse Manes beat him to death if it meant not seeing a look of fear in Alex’s eyes. Collapsing to the ground, screaming out his pain, he didn’t know how long he lay there before he was pulled back to himself. 

He left, wrapping his hand as best as he could before he felt the call to go to Izzy and Max.

In bits and pieces of memory, he recalled going and catching Izzy right as Rosa’s body hit the ground. Proceeding numbly, the command he’d been given before he went into stasis buzzed through him. ‘Protect the twins.’

So they covered up another murder. Again. And this time he took the blame to save Izzy from the crushing despair he knew she’d feel at taking a human life. It was easier to be hated by a sibling who barely acknowledged you than to watch the same sibling self destruct at the knowledge they killed something.

They covered it up and moved on. He and Izzy agreed to make Liz decide to leave town after graduation, Isobel and Max would proceed with their post-high school plans...and Michael would just be on his own as he always was. 

He went looking for Alex to try and make sense of things. To find the comfort he’d momentarily felt. After grad, he was nowhere to be found. His hand didn’t heal well, as Max and Izzy constantly reminded him it was too much of a risk to go to the hospital in case they wanted run tests. So they’d set it as best as they could using the internet and a first aid kit, but by the time he was able to take the wrapping off he could see that the damage was done. 

Alex Manes had given him, if only for one night, love.

Jesse Manes, in the matter of moments, had taken if from him.

Max and Izzy could never know. They instead took from him the last of the innocence he felt in his heart.

That night, under the open sky of wrong constellations, he wept for the man he could have been, knowing that man burnt up in the car with Rosa, with no-one to heal his pain.

***

_5\. Time of Rebuilding_

“I never look away. Not really.”

From there Michael fell. Fell into Alex’s eyes, pleading to be taken back to a time 10 years ago when life was simple. Before Jesse Manes had torn their world apart. Before he’d made all the mistakes that drove Alex away, and kept him distant from the two people who were supposed to love him no matter what. 

He fell into bed with Alex, feeling more at home with him than he ever had with his hook ups over the years. Feeling urgent hand, grasping and clawing at his body, begging for a closeness that shouldn’t have been possible, the nipping bites and the sucking kisses, letting himself be taken apart by Alex’s tender ministrations, he bit his lip to keep from crying out, “I love you.”

Rolling them over, feeling himself encompass Alex, knowing he would get his turn to lead, he felt his back arch at the hasty intrusion and at being a little out of practise, but knowing these moves with this dance partner as though it were just yesterday. On the right side of too rough, he urged Alex forward, feeling the other man’s hand tangle in his hair, forcing him to look in his eyes as they moved together. Trying and failing at restraining himself from scratching Alex’s back, he found himself unable to look away from the persistent gaze. 

Feeling Alex reach his tipping point buried deep within him, he felt the heat of his release between their chests, nipping at Alex’s jaw. As their frantic pace slowed, the gentle kisses grew deeper, tasting each other’s depths, and kissing away tears as they formed. Trading positions, they weren’t as desperate to find solace in each other as they had been, but to remind themselves of their potential. A call back to the days when Michael wasn’t so guarded around Alex, and when Alex was simply able to love him for being who he was. 

Gasping in each other’s ears, they felt the shiver of their climax at the same time, causing Michael to nearly literally see the stars in Alex’s eyes. Getting up and getting a couple warm cloths, he took his time to make sure Alex was thoroughly clean before tidying himself up. Unabashed in his nakedness, he settled back into bed with Alex who was already snoring softly.

Brushing his nose against Alex’s, he whispered softly, so as to not disturb him.

“I love you.”

This was the first time he’d ever uttered those words, apart from his siblings, and knew deep in his heart that he was right.

Watching Alex’s lips twitch just slightly, he let himself drift away, remembering the warm brown and long eyelashes of his lover.

Even if it was only one sided. 

Even if it was only tonight.

He could live with only just tonight.

***

_6\. Time of Regression_

“Would it be so bad if she did?”

“Yeah!” came Alex’s terse response, eyes accusing him of what exactly? 

Leaning back as casually as he could, the single word landed like a blow to his chest. Of all the fights he’d been in, and all the hard knocks he took, they paled in comparison to this. Looking down and away at the expression in Alex’s eyes, he simply took a deep breath and moved on as though in autopilot. This was the nature of their relationship. 

Intimacy then estrangement. Neither willing to be truly vulnerable with the other for reasons they both knew and refused to acknowledge. 

That wasn’t to say their behaviour was particularly healthy, but they’d both been on the other side of this argument before. It had been years since the last one, when they’d gotten caught up in a kiss behind Crash Down and Mr. Ortecho had almost caught them. 

Once they’d finally parted ways, and Michael was lead out to deal with the latest drama that Max and Izzy had stirred up, he tried to wipe the memory of the expression on Alex’s face out of his mind by downing a nearly insane amount of nail polish remover. He’d sprung for the fancy stuff with aloe so he could at least pretend he was drinking a smoothie.

Laying in the box of his truck, sleeping bag pulled up to his shoulders, old pillow wedged under his head, watching the stars slowly start to peak out through the inky darkness. It had been a long time since he’d done this, for this exact reason. Trying to imagine what the sky must have looked like at home. He felt as though he had likely seen the stars before before they came here, but like so many memories, it was just another wisp of thought that slipped through his fingers. 

Rolling over on his side, he curled his legs up to his chest as he’d done nearly every night he was in foster care in a few of the homes, as though to make himself so small that no-one would notice him. It was unusual for Alex’s behaviour to affect him this long afterwards, especially when he was cleaning up after his siblings. Willing his mind to quiet, he heard the rattling of the tools on his work bench begin to quiet. Taking deep calming breaths as he’d been taught by Sister Marina when he was a teen, the vibrations in his truck were lessening. 

Closing his eyes, the lingering after image of the brown eyes that had followed him through his childhood drifted to the surface and the whisper in his ear he was so desperate to hear, even though he would never admit it. 

‘I love you.’

Choking back a sob, wishing that maybe, one day, he would hear someone else say it and mean it. He would hear someone say it back, not out of familial obligation. He would hear someone say it, just because they wanted to.

Someday.

Someday.

***

_+1 Time of Resurrection_

Michael was curled on his side on the bed in his Airstream, hand pressed firmly to his side with a compress, hoping to staunch the bleeding. He could tell it was already slowing faster than human normal so it wasn’t that severe. Nothing important got punctured. It just hurt like a son of a bitch.

Max and Izzy had left town for the time being, Liz and Kyle helping cover their disappearance, and Noah was running interference from the legal side of things. He’d been far enough separated from them that he wasn’t in any immediate danger except from a graze from a bullet from Jesse Manes’ gun. Nothing fatal but not something he could exactly ignore either.

Dumping half a bottle of rubbing alcohol on the graze, he could see the divot in his flesh. He was going to need stitches to at least attempt to minimize the scarring. If he was going to do that, he’d have to do it soon before he passed out from shock. Taking a swig of the berry scented nail polish remover to help dull the pain and drown out the frantic feelings he was getting from Izzy. He didn’t have the patience or the energy to deal with her right now.

Looking up as he heard someone fiddling with the lock on the door, he tensed, anticipating another assault. It was a slim chance, but it was still a chance.

The appearance of Alex did very little to dial down the tension, but at least as far as he could see, he wasn’t armed. Slamming the door shut behind Alex, he flicked the lock from his vantage point on the bed. Alex already knew that he was an alien, thanks in large part to his Dad, but when he confronted Michael about it, he didn’t see the point in lying to him anymore. 

It was not a pleasant conversation. By the end of it, Alex understood the need for secrecy given the magnitude of the revelation, though he left without a word from that conversation. The last person Michael expected to see after getting shot trying to provide assistance to Max and Isobel was the son of the man who shot him. Even with their complex history, it was definitely too much to hope for.

Though apparently not.

Hazarding a look up into Alex’s eyes, he felt himself relaxing despite himself. There was no ugliness or revulsion. No shame like the last time Alex had seen him this vulnerable. Only concern and anger at the sight of the bloody fabric strewn about.

“Alex...”

“Shut up. We have to get your shirt off so I can take a look at this.”

“Any excuse to get me naked huh?”

Alex shot him a halfhearted glare.

“Like I’ve ever needed an excuse.”

Michael’s mouth went a little dry at that statement. Definitely not the response he was expecting. Sitting up gingerly, he peeled off the shirt, wincing as it stuck slightly to his wound. A rivulet of fresh blood rolled unencumbered to the waist of his jeans. Great. Something else he’d have to replace.

“It’s mostly superficial. You’re lucky they caught your ribs but missed anything else.”

Alex’s voice was soft and calm, like he was trying to not spook Michael. Cold hands gently probed at the wound, which then was replaced with a mechanically perfect cleaning and field dressing of the wound. Watching Alex tape him up, he rested his hand on Alex’s shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze of thanks. 

When Alex looked up at him through his eyelashes, Michael felt his heart skip a beat, and pinpricks of tears in the corner of his eyes. These were the eyes that comforted him in their more intimate moments, but were always gone when first light came. The look he craved when they passed each other in the street, or at the grocery store. 

“What do you want from me?” Michael’s voice felt strange in his mouth, but the question needed to be asked.

“Why did you come here?”

He hated it. He hated feeling this vulnerable. He hated feeling like this for one man who made him so weak but at the same time feel like he could move mountains.

“I...I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“You could have texted me.”

Alex growled a little in the back of his throat. There was a werewolf movie marathon at the Drive In the other day so not too surprising he’d picked up the habit.

“I know that my Dad was the one who shot you and I wanted...I needed...”

“What Alex. What was it you needed. What do you _want_ from me?”

He could hear the hysteria in his voice.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted to come here and see if I could help you. I wanted to come, and take care of you and tell you that you aren’t alone.”

Angry tears fell down Alex’s face, and he was almost spitting.

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t alone, and try to be here for you when I wasn’t when you needed me before. I wanted to try and help heal you from something my asshole father did to you that I was powerless to stop. Again.”

Michael reached out and shook his head.

“I don’t blame you for that Alex. Never. I never blamed you for that. You were a teenager.”

“So were you.”

“But I’m not the one who matters Alex. I never was. I’m...All I ever do is clean up after Max and Iz. Protect them. Get grazed by a bullet for them. Bury bodies. Maybe that’s all I am on this world Alex. Maybe I’m just the rock bottom where everyone’s shit lands. But I don’t blame you Alex. If I could go back, I’d do exactly the same thing.”

“You don’t...” Alex started asking the question as though it were personally offensive to him.

“Matter Alex. I don’t matter.” Michael replied as though it were the most obvious truth in reality.

A thick silence fell between them. Punctuated by the occasional sniff from both men. Alex looked up at Michael, who looked so small and defeated. He looked tired. Hesitantly crossing the distance, Alex pulled a resisting Michael into his arms and rested his forehead on his bare shoulder.

They stood like this, swaying slightly as Alex tried to keep Michael upright and as Michael slowly wrapped his arms around Alex’s waist, he gave in to the shuddering sob that had been threatening to break though his facade for years. Taking a gulping breath, Michael didn’t fight it any more. He let it out. Soaking Alex’s shoulder with tears that had been building up for over 20 years.

Relaxing into Alex’s touch, he felt Alex’s lips whispering against his ear, and when the blood stopped pounding in his head, he could finally hear the rhythmic drone that brought him back to himself.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” and variations of the same fell from Alex’s lips, punctuated with his own tears.

Breaking the hug, and feeling things finally settle in his chest, Alex wiped the tears from Michael’s eyes while MIchael cupped his cheek. Pressing a kiss to the calloused palm of his hand, Alex looked at Michael with bloodshot eyes.

“I love you Michael. And...I’m sorry for what I’ve done. This...this isn’t easy...”

“I know. Alex. Neither of us had great examples for this sort of thing.”

Alex sniffed and laughed a little. That was pretty obvious.

“I want you Alex. I love you, and I want you. But if you want to walk away...I understand that too.”

Alex shook his head firmly in the negative at that thought.

“I’m here Michael. With you. I love you. I’m just sorry it took me so long to see it.”

Michael smiled a small smile.

“I’ve waited over 21 years for signs that would get me home. What I didn’t quite realize was that...maybe I finally am.”

Curling up on the bed together, the adrenaline of the day flushing out of them, they simply lay together, Michael losing himself in another pair of warm brown eyes, but this time, he knew, he’d find safety.

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE do not interpret that I dislike Max and Isobel. PLEASE don’t assume I hate any of the characters (except Jesse. He’s a dick.)
> 
> I live for kudos and comments.


End file.
